A/HRC/30/48 attacks.6 They are also the primary civilian victims of enforced disappearance, torture and unlawful killing. 41. Consistent with previously documented patterns, men – particularly those with identification cards showing them to be from restive areas – are arbitrarily arrested by Government forces. This happened most frequently at checkpoints in Governmentcontrolled areas of Damascus and Aleppo cities, as well as on the main routes linking Damascus and Dara’a governorates. Countless men remain detained due to activities relating to their exercise of freedom of expression or assembly. Others appear to have been detained to pressure family members wanted by the authorities, rendering their detention unlawful. 42. While enforced disappearances were first documented during the March 2011 protests, subsequent investigations uncovered a countrywide pattern in which mainly adult male civilians have been seized by Government forces and disappeared. 43. Most former detainees interviewed by the Commission are adult men. Their treatment is detailed in Section F, below. 44. The Government’s ubiquitous checkpoints have vastly limited the freedom of movement of men seeking to leave opposition-held areas. Civilian men are effectively trapped in areas in which there may be heavy clashes or intense aerial bombardments. Even in calmer areas or periods, the specific threats posed to civilian men from Government checkpoints have prevented them from accessing work and therefore, from being able to provide for their families. Multiple accounts have been documented of women leaving their husbands behind in opposition-held areas to accompany their pre-adolescent sons through the checkpoints and out of the area before they reach an age where they are likely to be stopped by Government forces. 45. The Government’s recent campaign of conscripting men into its armed forces has further inhibited the movement of adult men to and within Government-held areas. 46. The majority of those executed by ISIS are adult men. In many instances, ISIS declared the men to be captured fighters or civilian collaborators with Government forces or other armed groups as a justification for murdering them. 47. ISIS has also forcibly recruited men and boys. As the group’s control over the Dayr Az-Zawr countryside has solidified, ISIS reportedly demanded that each family send at least one son to fight with the group. 48. In ISIS-controlled areas, specific rules apply to men. These are less restrictive than the rules applying to women and girls over the age of 10, but include a dress code, having a beard of a particular length, and attending Friday prayers at the mosque. Failure to abide by these rules frequently results in lashing. Men found in the company of women to whom they are not related risk a charge of adultery, punishable by death. C. Women 49. Throughout the unrest and conflict in the Syrian Arab Republic, women and girls have been targeted on the basis of their gender. 6 8 As documented in the Commission’s previous reports, those treated as being of fighting age include boys under the age of 18 years. The treatment of male minors, including the violations committed against them, is covered in Sect. D (Children), below.